Our family is in a quandry - looking for suggestions!
DD’s class schedule includes Honors Algebra II, AP Bio, AP Euro, Honors English, and Latin II. She is also on the Cross Country team instead of PE (it’s honestly not a choice at our school, and she finds running stress reducing). Right now (nearing the end of 1st quarter) she has about 92% in every class. I consider her teachers “The Dream Team” - every one is top notch, and I can’t honestly say they require much “busy work.” They are good about giving monthly work calendars, and nearly all said “Homework for my class shouldn’t take more than a half hour.” It doesn’t…unless there is a test/quiz (at least 8 a week); a review due, or a paper. DD leaves for school at 6:00, returns at 4:45 with an hour study hall between class and practice, She does her homework efficiently (makes a schedule, uses Quizlet to speed review time, tries to get things done ahead of due date, etc) and there are simply not enough hours in the day. By the time she ices her shins and eats a quick dinner, it’s 6PM. 3.5 - 4 hours of homework is standard, even though she studies most of the day on both weekend days. The cost to her health, her extracurriculars, and our family is excessive. I have no idea what to do!!! The material is well within her capabilities -it’s simply the amount of homework demanded. Right now, we have her taking documentation data, and I am thinking of going to the school to discuss the issue. If a kid like this, who is the type of kid that honors courses are supposed to serve, has to drop out because she can’t stay healthy there is something wrong!!! Really open to suggestions!!! I don’t want to be a helicopter parent, but I do see this as a systemic issue as well as my daughter’s issue. Really, really need suggestions!!!
We have the same problem only my son is a Freshman. The reponse that we have gotten from our school is that because honors classes are weighted more heavily, the expectations are greater including more work at a faster pace. My son has made the choice to sacrifice getting As in the class to keep his health and sanity. Our school is on a 7 point scale so getting an A requires a 93. I agree that there’s something wrong, but bottom line is the school is unwilling to make changes.
I just have to ask myself - if an “ideal candidate” for honors classes like my daughter has to drop out because of homework demands, are the classes serving the intended purpose? And in the bigger picture, why should she have to make a choice between taking these classes and attending birthday parties for grandparents, or taking a beloved Saturday art class, or volunteering. Where is the balance? How can I help facilitate it?
Welcome to the club… the expectations on our kids are impossible these days. I couldn’t have done it. The good news is that you are nearing the end of her sports season. I think athletes have it the hardest. Good that she has a study hall, we always made sure our kids had one – they never would have made it without.
I am going to be honest – you aren’t going to get anywhere complaining to the school. You and she need to make the choices you can live with. Is she in 10th grade? We found 11th to be the most stressful year. My kids did give up some ECs over the year to make time for academics.
Not saying its ideal, but it is par for the course, IF your family chooses to have her take the honors/AP courses in every subject matter and participate in a time consuming EC such as a varsity sport. Does she do winter and spring track as well or will she have more time in other seasons?
Personally, skipping grandparents’ birthday parties should not be an option nor should she have to pass on a Saturday art class, unless it conflicts with race commitments.
3-4 hours of homework isn’t unusual. Most teens don’t get 8 hours of sleep per night during the week.
It’s unlikely that the system will change within her high school time period, although we could all argue it should. Your family needs to make a personal decision regarding whether you want to be part of this rat race and whether she can handle it.
There are always choices to be made, not always desirable , but choices and I agree with @intparent jr year is brutal
and very crucial to college admissions . My other son is a senior currently taking 5 AP classes , one CP language class and a study hall. He has less homework than my Freshman taking 3 honors classes. Each year it gets worse with expectations early on. Depending on how things go this year, he may very well take even less honors classes , not because he isn’t smart enough but because of the crazy amount of work involved.
Some of the AP classes, including AP Bio and all the AP history classes, cover a lot of material and do require a lot of work. I don’t think there is any way around that.
However, I’m puzzled that she would need to work so hard in the other classes. If they even have a half hour of homework every day, it shouldn’t require a lot of additional studying for the quizzes and tests. Is it possible she is in a vicious cycle of too little sleep and therefore struggling to learn things which should have been mastered simply by doing the homework?
We are in a similar situation except that our kids don’t get PE credit for sports. All I can suggest is turn off all electronics, evaluate whether quizlet is really a good study tool–my daughter also likes it but I think it’s inefficient and being on the computer unnecessarily can lead to distractions. Also, she should be working on the bus and while she is icing–that time adds up.
What do you mean that running cross country vs. taking PE is not an option? I’d look into having her finish the season and then no more cross country. She can still go for a run for stress relief.
Is she a science or humanities kid? Going forward maybe she can dial back in the areas that don’t interest her as much.
What helpful responses!! To answer your questions, she thinks she is a science kid. Our older daughter went to the same schools, and we ended up writing a fan letter to the seven English teachers about her demonstrated skill in freshman year of college vs the other students from private/public schools. I would agree that the demands have increased dramatically. I have a friend with a high flying son three years older who had nearly the same curriculum/teachers. She said the demands seem to have increased significantly in just that three years. I have a theory - I wonder if they have been asked to include more common core work and have had to “add it” to the curriculum without “subtracting” other work. No evidence…just a hunch.
And to suzy100, in CA 2 years of PE are required. You can opt to do a sport, or you can take standard PE. At our school, nearly everyone chooses a sport. Older DD is non-athletic, and said “NO WAY am I spending my time on a sport - I don’t care if everyone says PE is dull and filled with kids who are unmotivated and apathetic”. By the end of the first quarter, she was begging to move to a sport. I know that they have worked to improve it, but I also know it remains… designed only for a rubber stamp. She is not on varsity - she’s on frosh soph. The season is year long - cross country rolls right into track with nary a break.
Are there any kids taking all AP and honors classes who are not putting in 4-6 hours per night when they get home and then at least 4-6 hours on the weekend? I fought it her freshman year, gave in last year and have now accepted it as fate. She does not want to take any regular classes (she is very much into protecting her class rank) and she likes the challenge of her IB courses. So this has become our new normal. Would love to hear from parents who have bucked the system, forced kids into regular classes and still found their kids loved school, loved life and got into a solid university. Does that ever happen?
Here’s my hypothesis .Just as colleges and universities are desperate to increase their rankings , so are public schools. With so many educational choices now including magnet programs , charter schools, home schooling , virtual schools and private schools, they are competing to keep the brightest and smartest at their schools. When parents and students are looking at options for HS, these zoned schools want to keep their money in their pockets instead of sending it to competing magnet , charter schools. Just a thought. I think we’ll
see the trend to trickle down to middle school and that’s sad.
Are other kids having the same issue? Talk to other parents and kids and see. If it is a systemic issue, I can see raising it with counselors, coaches, etc. At our school coaches were a good source of help. Many were understanding about course work and would let an athlete skip a practice for an exam or even to sleep if necessary. One year the football team had a high number of kids who became academically ineligible, so the school experimented with having all freshmen athletes having mandatory study hall. Good teachers were on hand to tutor (yes we live in Texas, can you tell? but the study hall did come at the expense of a practice) A kid who could show he didn’t need the study hall would get a bye after the first grading period.
Does she spend time on social media or watch TV? Text friends a lot? Check that there aren’t any big time sucks in her life.
I am sympathetic. My kids took all the hard classes plus played high level sports/music. It was quite a juggling act. No free time during the season. They coped by sleeping when they could and by studying and doing homework during the day, sometimes with friends at lunch or on a team bus. We were fortunate in that the team culture was for kids to help each other like upperclassmen to tutor others in math.I also noticed that the kids suffered more in the fall, when they were figuring out how best to manage their schedules. By spring it was under control.
Yes, I also don’t understand why XC would be mandatory. Most sports at our school are a major EC and preclude most other activities. My daughter is currently in a few that require only 1-3 hours per week but anything major wouldn’t be possible along with a sport, and yes she would make time to go to a birthday party or an art class if that was a little EC she wanted.
My first thought too.
I think a lot of people here would agree with you and love to see some changes. However, you and your D will have to make choices. Also agree junior year is going to be worse. So you should think about those choices now.
This is just so wrong, particularly for any kid who wants to score a 4/5 on the AP test. Think about it: the AP courses are supposed to be a rough equivalent to a first year course at an average college. There is no way any college would say, sure, our courses only require a couple of hours of HW per week outside of class. Euro alone has a huge book, which itself takes time to just read, much less digest.
Our kids AP Euro teacher was one of those dream teachers, who had an extremely high rate of 5’s. He also had a kid at the HS, but in the College Prep track, not AP. He joked that he knew his son only had an hour of HW per day total, but his class alone could easily run 45 minutes to an hour on most nights.
3+ hours per night sounds about right with that schedule. Junior year is brutal, but you will get through it.
Good luck.
My daughters graduated from high school in 2009 and 2011. D1 had a GPA of approximately 3.4. She did not take all honors classes. She had time for home life and a job. She applied to 15 or so colleges and got into at least 10 of them. She loved college. She went to school on the west coast, traveled around the world after graduation, moved back to the west coast, and just moved to the east coast. D2 had a GPA of 4.0. She took lots of honors and AP classes. She did a sport and was in band. She had less free time than her older sister but seemed able to manage things well for the most part. She applied to 18 colleges and got into 14 of them. She graduated from college this year and has a job in her field.
My point is that I think it’s possible for most young people to get into solid colleges without killing themselves in high school.
btw: I’m a big fan of x-c, but unless she wants to be a serious runner, I’d drop spring track. She can easily catch up the mileage and track work over the summer to prepare for next fall. (California requires 4 semesters of PE, and it doesn’t matter when you take them.)
I have never asked what the scoring looks like for our AP tests, but based on the skill of these teachers, I would be willing to bet that it is overwhelmingly 4 and 5 scores. For other parents benefit, Cal Newport’s book How to be a High School Superstar without Stressing Out is excellent at honing study techniques. There are some fantastic ideas in there, the best of which was to use a schedule daily to plan your homework. She has yet to master gauging effort to match the amount of points given, but that’s coming and is more related to teachers not discussing it. Noone likes to be “that kid” who is always asking what the assignment is worth. Based on her interests, I would love to drop honors English, as it has the highest workload and is not in her area of interest, but I know from talking to other parents that CP English is going to be extremely nondemanding. I can tell you that she is working far, far more hours than I am, and I own a company. She is also working far more hours than her sister did in college.
The worst decision I’ve made as a parent (so far) was to not insist that D1 drop down from the advanced track of math. She did fine in the advanced-track math class in 5th grade, struggled in 6th, did okay in 7th and 8th, and by 12th, nearly failed. So she survived and she went to college and loved college, as I said above, but she would have been much happier with school if she had been in more manageable (for her) math classes.